Newsgroups: uk.finance
From: David Marsh 
Subject: Re: Passbooks .........
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Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 13:44:27 +0100

[Text interleaved/in conversation order: read to end for all comments]
begin  quote from Ronald Raygun in uk.finance 
 about: Re: Passbooks ......... 

> David Marsh wrote:
> 
>> begin  quote from Ronald Raygun in uk.finance
>>> 
>> 
>> Oh, I didn't realise that all banks (that don't have explicit postal
>> arrangements) would accept deposits in this way.
> 
> Well, bank branches do have postal addresses.  So I suppose that must
> count as an "explicit postal arrangement".

Nah, that'd be "implicit" ;-)
But seriously, it had just never occurred to me that banks would
ordinarily accept deposits by post. After all, why maintain a branch
network and dozens of cashiers, otherwise? ;-)


>> Unfortunately, not very useful (for me) though, since it costs the price
>> of an envelope and a stamp,
> 
> Heh, heh.  I remember having an account once (a postal savings account)
> where the building society kept me well stocked with a supply of pre-paid
> envelopes for sending in deposits or withdrawal requests.

That's the "explicit" case.. :)


>> and has the added
>> and not-insignificant risk factor of the Royal Mail losing the envelope
>> somewhere.. :-(
> 
> The risk of the mail losing the envelope *is* insignificant.  It happens,
> but only when it rains and there is a green moon.  

You must be lucky, then!

I suppose there's probably less chance of the postie failing to
correctly find the bank in the High St than there is of them shovelling 
random envelopes for somebody in the close/street/neighbourhood into our 
letterbox (which does rather make me wonder how much of my mail ends up
somewhere else!!), which isn't exactly uncommon..


>> [1] I wonder how long before conventional banks start to really grumble
>> about the (I'm sure) increasing number of people who only have an
>> account with the conventional bank to make deposits and then transfers
>> to online banks (which usually offer better interest, etc), such that the
>> conventional bank doesn't see our money for very long and doesn't get
>> much use out of it?
> 
> Well, if the online banks can afford to give competitive terms, so
> should the "conventional" ones be able to.  

I thought the argument was "ah, but they don't have this huge branch
network to maintain"?

> But really, aren't most of the online banks really just
> the self same conventional banks, trading under a different identity?

Yes, most of them are, but not all (eg, ING, not otherwise a
branch-based bank in the UK).

But even then, I think they're legally, and therefore presumably
operationally, separate?

I've just opened an account with IF, and have had to jump through the
whole ID hurdle again, even though I already have an account with HBOS.
They don't seem to have a way to recognise that "I'm already a customer"
in that sense, so I presume they must be legally separate to some degree?


-- 
David Marsh,              |
Edinburgh, Scotland.  [en, fr, (de)]  |  http://web.viewport.co.uk/   |
>Please help me by correcting any errors in my foreign language posts!<
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